I was watching Pineapple Express the other day and it reminded me of a story from Rochester. There was this guy who lived in Rochester (this was around 1980) off of Monroe Avenue. Monroe Avenue for those that have not been to Rochester is frequented by a lot of street people, artistic/hippie types, and drug addicts. At the time most of the activity down there was focused around Monroe Show World and Adult movie theatre.. It was alleged that the Rochester guys had a piece of the theatre. In its heyday, there were drugs and prostitutes being peddled 24 hours a day there.

Anyway I digress. The guy I previously mentioned was your typical dirty hippie type. He looked exactly like James Franco’s character in Pineapple Express, and his mannerisms were the same. The guy called himself Major Tony Nelson (the character from Bewitched for you younger readers). Somehow Tony came up with a duffel bag full of weed that must have weighed at least 40lbs. Tony usually peddled dime bags of weed and hits of LSD that were more often than not fake. There are guys like Tony in every city, a small time hustler that somehow ended up with a big score. The problem was he wanted to sell all of the weed at once and he came up with the idea (most likely while he was highly “medicated”) to try to sell the weed to the Rochester wise guys. Tony takes his huge bag to Rene’s clubhouse on Jay Street and about a half hour later he stumbles out bruised and bloody with no bag.

At this point tony is pissed. It just so happens he was friends with some local bikers who call themselves The Lords. The Lords are still around. They are a support group for the Rochester chapter of the Hells Angels. Tony goes to his friend, a Lord, and tells him he got robbed and that if his friend helps him get his weed back, he will give him 10lbs for free. Tony did not mention who robbed him. Tony’s friend gets a few of his biker buddies and they head down to Jay Street about 10 guys deep. Tony is riding on the back of his friend’s bike, and when they arrive, Tony jumps off the bike, points to the club house and tells everyone how the wise guys robbed him. The Lords immediately drove off and told Tony he was on his own. Tony stood looking around trying to comprehend what happened. It must have taken him 45 minutes before he realized there was nothing he could do so he wandered off. There was actually a time in Rochester, believe it or not, where the wise guys had more influence than the police.